Orbital Industries signs BASF deal to speed research

JOSEPH GABRIEL LAGONSIN

News Editor

Orbital Industries has signed an agreement with BASF Environmental Catalyst and Metal Solutions to license its CurieOS materials discovery platform, bringing the software into catalyst research for automotive emissions applications.

BASF’s Environmental Catalyst and Metal Solutions unit, known as ECMS, supplies aftertreatment systems and catalytic products to the automotive market. Under the agreement, the division will use CurieOS in its catalyst research and development work.

The deal expands Orbital Industries beyond its existing work in data centres, where it has used the same platform to develop a PFAS-free cooling material for its Orbital IT brand. CurieOS is designed to help researchers identify promising materials before producing laboratory samples.

Materials discovery in industrial settings often involves long testing cycles, as candidate substances must be synthesised, characterised and assessed under operating conditions. CurieOS is intended to shorten that process by combining literature review, data analysis and simulation in a single scientist-directed workflow.

At the centre of CurieOS is Orb, the company’s atomistic simulation model. Orbital Industries says the model can predict the properties of new materials and give researchers what it describes as a virtual laboratory for evaluating candidates computationally before committing to physical testing.

Orb can simulate 100,000 atoms on a single graphics processing unit, according to Orbital Industries, which also says the model runs faster than competing systems from large technology groups and academic teams. It cited independent benchmark results in support of those claims.

Automotive pressure

The BASF unit is entering the agreement as carmakers and suppliers face continued pressure to adapt emissions technologies to tighter regulation, changing powertrain designs, alternative fuels and cost constraints. Those factors have kept catalyst development a priority across the automotive supply chain.

Saeed Alerasool, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for ECMS at BASF, said this backdrop had made faster development more important.

“The agreement comes at a critical time for the automotive sector. The development of mobile emissions catalyst technologies continues to be driven by tightening emissions regulations, evolving powertrain technologies and alternative fuels, as well as growing cost pressure. At BASF ECMS, we continuously explore new approaches to accelerate development and further improve R&D and application efficiency. Through this agreement, we look forward to leveraging emerging AI technologies to enhance our ability to deliver leading solutions and help address evolving customer and market needs,” Alerasool said.

Research tool

Orbital Industries describes CurieOS as an AI research system that can follow goal-based instructions from scientists across several steps, including reviewing published work, analysing experimental results and running simulations to generate new hypotheses. It says this approach can reduce the number of physical experiments needed in the earliest stages of a programme.

That matters in catalysis because the field involves interactions at material surfaces that can be difficult to model accurately with lower-cost methods. Larger, more detailed simulations can help researchers narrow which candidates should move to laboratory testing.

James Gin-Pollock, Chief Technology Officer at Orbital Industries, said the technical demands of catalyst work made it a useful proving ground for the software.

“Catalysis is a brutal test for any simulation model – you’re dealing with complex surfaces, large systems, and subtle interactions that cheaper methods miss. Orb was built for exactly this: it can simulate systems of a scale and complexity that were previously out of reach, fast enough that scientists can actually iterate. That’s what makes it valuable for real industrial workflows rather than just a research demo,” Gin-Pollock said.

Jonathan Godwin, Chief Executive Officer of Orbital Industries, said the BASF agreement was a practical application of the company’s work in industrial materials development.

“The hardest part of materials discovery is knowing where to look. CurieOS gives scientists a way to explore and test ideas computationally before committing time in the lab, which means more of their effort goes into the candidates that matter. ECMS hosts exactly the kind of demanding, real-world materials development we built this for,” Godwin said.

The agreement places Orbital Industries in a segment of the industrial software market where chemical and materials companies are increasingly testing artificial intelligence tools against established laboratory processes. For BASF ECMS, the immediate use case is catalyst development for emissions systems, an area where small gains in material performance can carry commercial and regulatory significance.